


a phoenix in the fire

by firelordazulas



Category: Political Animals
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:36:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelordazulas/pseuds/firelordazulas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then Elaine Barrish invites Susan onto a plane. And she goes. Of course she does, even though she doesn't even know if she ever wants to write again, doesn't know what to make this story about - Elaine has invited her, so she goes. She packs her tallest heels and she boards Air Force Two as if she isn't a hack who doesn't deserve to be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a phoenix in the fire

Susan Berg has spent her entire life driving herself ruthlessly up a hill called 'moral righteousness’. She knows and recognises this - knows that it's one of the founding tenets of journalism, knows that it's what made her want to be a journalist in the first place, knows that it's what made her so entirely insufferable in grade school. The line 'I just want the truth’ has definitely been a guiding motto. So why was does she have a Pulitzer sitting in a box under the bunk bed at her sisters that she earned for a blatant and total misunderstanding of feminism, and nothing else to show for the entirety of her goddamn career? For the entirety of her goddamn life? Sure, she’d had some front pages, broken some good stories, shared a room with the most powerful people on the planet - but what does that count for, when in the end, she doesn’t even have her precious sense of moral superiority? She just has regret, and the lingering taste of a very musty pack of cigarettes she found lurking in the back of her sister’s wardrobe. If only pity parties for has-been journalists could sell newspapers. 

 

Then Elaine Barrish invites Susan onto a plane. And she goes. Of course she does, even though she doesn't even know if she ever wants to write again, doesn't know what to make this story about - Elaine has invited her, so she goes. She packs her tallest heels and she boards Air Force Two as if she isn't a hack who doesn't deserve to be there.

Susan’s doodling on a bit on paper, attempting to come up with anything that remotely resembles an angle for her latest piece, and Elaine is there. She’s smiling, gently, and there's some light shining behind, a warm, soft kind of light, and she looks like a fucking angel, and Susan knows if God exists he's laughing his fucking arse off. Elaine doesn't say anything to Susan, but she does wave and it's kind of dorky and lame and Susan is in so deep. She has no hope of touching the bottom. So she waves back, and Elaine responds with this smile that's small and tired but actually looks genuine - as if she's happy to see Susan.

 

Of course all Susan’s life roads lead to Her. Of course she's been the mountain Susan’s been trying to climb this entire time, and boy did that allusion sound better in her head, but the point is; this is what she's here to do. Susan is here to find the truth, the tell the world about it, and that horrible righteous spark that she loves and she hates is reignited. And she knows the angle she wants for her story. And she knows that she’s in the closest thing to love she thinks she's ever felt. 

 

Elaine doesn't have time for her in the following weeks and Susan is not surprised, she can't even say she's hurt. Those rare glimpses of her seem to now be enough. In fact, Susan wonders if she could even bear the full weight of Elaine smiling down upon her. But the presence of the almost-president doesn't leave her - there's a constant stream of invites to exclusive events, of access to quotes and stories that are perfect for her and what she's writing, things that aren't exactly exclusive but have exclusive angles and exclusive access. 

 

Susan moves out of her sister’s house, finds her own apartment. She goes couch shopping. The whole time, she wonders if Elaine would like that certain shade of plum, how firm she’d want the pillow cushions to be, what kind of curtains she favours… But it's all futile. Elaine’s busy with the campaign, hasn't contacted her in weeks, and Susan is moving on. She's definitely moving past it. Apart from the part where she isn’t moving on, not even slightly a little bit. Instead, she mopes around her still mostly empty apartment and tries to write articles and eats a lot of ice cream and drinks a lot of wine. She watches a ton of shitty TV. Every time she tries to watch the news Elaine’s there, which yeah makes sense seeing as she’s the main contender in the Democratic primaries but does not help with the whole trying not to think about how much she’s in love with her thing. 

 

Susan gets on with her job and Elaine wins the primaries. It’s a good, strong victory, and Susan slams Elaine’s choice of Vice in the paper but sends her text that she says she’s impressed. Elaine replies with a winky face and Susan quietly dies in her still mostly empty apartment. A couple of texts are exchanged, and Susan likes to think they’re flirting but it’s probably just wishful thinking because Elaine’s almost the president as if she’d be flirting with Susan of all people, but then why would she waste her time messaging you, what is happening - and basically Susan’s internal monologue looks like that for about a week.

 

Predictably, Elaine wins the presidential election. Susan gets invited to all the swanky parties, even the really private Barrish-Hammond ones, and for the most part she hovers on the outskirts and tries not to nervous drink too much. Elaine keeps looking at her while in conversation with other people, making Susan want to go hide in the bathroom and obviously present herself to Elaine’s gaze all at once. Susan settles on quietly leaning against a cabinet with her ankles crossed to wait. Elaine’ll get there eventually.

 

And so Elaine does, maybe 20 minutes later, after she’s managed to extract herself from the groupies.

“Managed to pull yourself away from the adoring fans finally then.”

Elaine hands Susan a new glass of wine and rolls her eyes. “Are you not also among the legion of my fans? I read your latest article about me. You were  _ nice. _ ”

“I’m always nice.”

Elaine scoffed. “Oh, right, is that what we’re calling all those years of lambasting me. My mother keeps telling me it’s because you had a crush on me.” 

Her gaze is measuring Susan, looking for any kind of tell, and boy does Susan give her a whole host of them: her cheeks go bright red, she nervously pushes her hair back from her face and stares at the floor, while clearing her throat. “Your mother seems to be determined that I’m interested in women, and while she’s not exactly wrong I would like to know what her sources are.”

Elaine let out a dramatic sigh, “We could have bonded over cute girls, I can’t believe it took you this long to tell me.”

“Well you’re not exactly shouting it from the rooftops either.”

“What, should I start wearing plaid and shave my hair off?”

“Hmmm… Yes. Yes, I think you should.”

“I’ll be sure to tell my stylist your thoughts. I can’t wait to see what the focus group thinks of that.”

“They’ll love it. Add a ‘make America gay again’ snapback and you’ll have them eating out the palm of your hand.”

Elaine laughed, properly, like she hadn’t been able to for weeks, and Susan grinned like she’d just watched a particularly beautiful sunrise. 

They bantered back and forth for a while longer. It was smooth and natural and almost like a private bubble had descended upon them, with the two of them only seeing and hearing each other, with no awareness of the dozens of other people milling about the room. They didn’t notice as it gradually emptied out. Soon, there was only immediate family and Susan left, and their conversation had veered through multiple different subjects quite easily. At some point they’d relocated to a sofa off in a corner of the room. Susan was sat in corner at an angle, with Elaine sat almost touching her, turned in towards her. Elaine’s arm was along the back of the couch and they seemed cosy, comfortable within each others space. Eventually, Elaine finished her glass of wine, and as she looked about to get another one, she realised at some point the space had mostly emptied.

“Oh, damn, what time is it? You should probably be getting home.”

“Shit, I was only supposed to stay until midnight, I have an article due tomorrow.” Susan scrubbed a hand through her fringe and grabbed her shoes from where she kicked them off, struggling to stand on one foot then the other to get them on. A yawn stopped her where she was and seemed to remind Susan of Elaine, who was still sat on the sofa. The time had caught up to her and suddenly Susan was almost deliriously tired. She cupped a hand around the side of Elaine’s neck and kissed her cheek lingeringly, breathing in the faint remains of some obviously expensive perfume that’d been applied many hours earlier. “Goodnight, Elaine. This has honestly been amazing. Remember to come check out my new couch whenever you get time or want some advice on some terrible new policy my newspaper is going to hate.”

“Goodnight, Susan.” Her voice was quiet, and she stayed subdued as Susan stretched and then ambled away. Elaine’s eyes watched her the entire way.

 

Susan’s next contact with Elaine was a couple of texts to set up her sofa viewing. Although her apartment was mostly still empty, Susan only briefly thought about quickly buying some furniture to fill it; Elaine could see it as it was. There was enough room for the two of them to sit on the sofa, and the secret service agents that always came with Elaine could take the two chairs in the kitchen. 

Elaine’s knock is short and perfunctory and Susan pretends she hasn’t been sat waiting, ready, for about an hour. She shows Elaine in, offers her a drink (Elaine declines until she offers her a glass of an already open bottle of red wine), and the two of them sip quietly in the mostly empty room. 

“Susan. Please buy more furniture, this is just depressing. You don’t even have a table to put drinks on.”

“You can just put it on the floor, that works just fine, actually, and I don’t have time to go furniture shopping.”

“Fine. I’ll get you some furniture. This couch is nice, but you could do with some armchairs as well, and I’m sure I could ask Ann to recommend some good side tables -”

“Okay, woah, if I’m too busy to buy furniture, you definitely don’t have the time.”

“It’ll be a good project. And anyway, if I’m going to be spending any time here in the future I don’t want to be surrounded by lazy minimalism. I shudder to think what your bedroom looks like.”

Susan had winced. “At least I have a bedside table in there… Although I still have bought a bed frame...”

“You’re ridiculous. How old are you? Actually, don’t answer that, my point is you should be able to decorate your own apartment by yourself.” 

Susan grumbled and drank some wine, trying not to obviously glow even though Elaine had said she was going to be spending time here in the future. 

“Anyway, text or email me the dimensions of this place so I can plan something. It feels like it’s been such a long time since I got to decorate anywhere almost from scratch.”

“You’re not even doing this out of the goodness of your heart, are you? You just want some kind of pet project.”

Elaine half shrugged in an annoyingly elegant fashion. “What can I say? I’ve always loved decorating.”

“Am I going to get any sort of say in what the final product looks like?”

“Probably not. But I have impeccable taste, so I wouldn’t worry. It’ll give me an excuse to keep coming to see you, anyway.”

“Why would you need an excuse? You know I always want to see you, you’re just always too busy or important, or doing whatever that job of yours is - oh yeah, it might be being President of the United States, but you know, I could be wrong -”

Elaine had rolled her eyes and then placed a single finger over Susan’s mouth. “Shhh, stop being cute, I need to actually speak to you.”

“You think I’m cute?” It was slightly muffled, but Elaine could tell it was still smug.

She rolled her eyes again, and sighed at the ceiling. “God give me strength. Yes, that’s what I need to speak to you about. Now, you know I come with a lot of baggage, and obviously there’s going to be sneaking about, so I just want to check you know what you’re getting into -”

Susan pushed the finger from her lips and just held onto Elaine’s hand. “Wait, are you telling me this was a date? Oh my god. You should have told me! I’m wearing a shitty jumper and leggings, I didn’t even bother to brush my hair -”

“You didn’t realise it was a date? You literally held my cheek and invited me over to ‘look at your couch.’ ”

“Okay that sounds a lot worse when you say it like that -”

“So, this wasn’t a date?” Elaine tried to pull back her hand and stand up but Susan was quick to jump forward and stop her with a desperate and slightly messy kiss. 

It was too forceful, and their noses definitely bumped, but once they’d both gotten their arms around each other it was pretty damn magical, in Susan’s opinion anyway. 

“So does this mean I’m dating the President or...”

“I don’t know, does that mean you want to be dating the President, even though she’s old, and has a whole problematic family, and the entirety of the United States is watching her every move?”

“Holy shit. I’m dating the President.”

“You’re dating the President.” The two of them snickered a little, and then Elaine kissed her again. 

**Author's Note:**

> the tone is messy + everywhere i hate me + most of it can be blamed on alex + celine's fics bc they hate me 
> 
> title from bite - troye sivan.


End file.
